It is great to break my duck and get a win as captain, but this result is not
about me. I wanted the whole side to be successful and I am just really,
really chuffed for the guys.

They responded to adversity with a great team performance yesterday, and I am proud of every one of them.

It is always a privilege and an honour to play for Scotland. There is no feeling in the world like pulling on that shirt and running out at Murrayfield. But it really starts to mean something when you are playing well and winning.

I am just really happy for all the guys in the squad that we did that. We learnt our lessons from last week and I hope this victory is only the start of something big.

The breakdown had been highlighted as a critical area after last week’s loss to England.

As a squad, we had spoken about four key parts of the game, the nuts and bolts of rugby, which we had to get right, and that was one of them. We came up short at Twickenham, but I felt we got all the important things right yesterday. That was really why we won the match.

The feeling in the dressing room afterwards was really upbeat. We will enjoy those feelings for the next couple of days, but after that we will be working hard on analysing what we did.

Even now, in the immediate aftermath, we know that there are improvements that can be made.

But I do not see that as a negative; and improving on a winning performance is always a more positive experience than trying to patch things up after a defeat.

That is what we want to do. We want to be in an even better place when we take on Ireland in two weeks’ time.

Ahead of this game, the forwards all sat down for a talk with Dean Ryan, the forwards coach. He told us in no uncertain terms exactly what was expected of us.

The critical thing for the back row was to win the gain line and the contact zone. Our performance was not perfect by any measure, but over the piece I think we did what Dean wanted.

I had said to the players that we all knew what was expected of us, and that it was time to deliver.

As captain, I have stressed the importance of individual players doing their jobs properly, but there are elements of the job of each player that involve supporting others.

We all know that Euan Murray is a great scrummager, but it still takes the effort of all the pack to help him in that.

I think we pulled together pretty well yesterday. I was really impressed by the way all the boys worked and scrapped and fought for each other.

It is technically satisfying that we got those nuts and bolts right, but there is a huge collective pleasure in a team effort like that.

It was great to see Jim Hamilton play so well. He will admit himself that his performance at Twickenham was not as good as he wanted, but he answered his critics – and he would probably include himself among them – with a really big performance.

Yes, it is an honour and a thrill to play for Scotland, but it can also be a sacrifice. Jim has a young family and he makes those sacrifices without complaint. I am really pleased for him and for all the boys.

A couple of days before the game, my wife Emily had said to me that she did not mind me being away, but that I should make sure it was worth it. I am pretty satisfied that I did that.

I will be back at Saracens this week, but the club have given me the week off so I do not have to think about next weekend’s game. The club are pretty good at managing those things, so I will just be working in the gym and getting myself right.

It was always planned that I would have the fallow weeks between internationals off, and that is a great help to me personally and I am hugely grateful to them for that.